World War II: Events and Strategies
Outbreak of World War II (1939)
In late August 1939, Hitler and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed the German-
Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which incited a frenzy of worry in London and Paris.
Hitler had long planned an invasion of Poland, a nation to which Great Britain and
France had guaranteed military support if it were attacked by Germany. The pact
with Stalin meant that Hitler would not face a war on two fronts once he invaded
Poland, and would have Soviet assistance in conquering and dividing the nation
itself. On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later,
France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II.
Russo-Finnish War
On September 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. Under attack from
both sides, Poland fell quickly, and by early 1940 Germany and the Soviet Union
had divided control over the nation, according to a secret protocol appended to the
Non aggression Pact. Stalin’s forces then moved to occupy the Baltic States
(Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and defeated a resistant Finland in the Russo-
Finnish War.
Phony War
During the six months following the invasion of Poland, the lack of action on the
part of Germany and the Allies in the west led to talk in the news media of a
“phony war.” At sea, however, the British and German navies faced off in heated
battle, and lethal German U-boat submarines struck at merchant shipping bound
for Britain, sinking more than 100 vessels in the first four months of World War II.
World War II in the West (1940-41)
On April 9, 1940, Germany simultaneously invaded Norway and occupied
Denmark. On May 10, German forces swept through Belgium and the Netherlands
in what became known as lightning war.
Three days later, Hitler’s troops crossed the Meuse River and struck French forces
at Sedan, located at the northern end of the Maginot Line, an elaborate chain of
fortifications constructed after World War I and considered an important defensive
barrier. In fact, the Germans broke through the line with their tanks and planes and
continued to the rear, rendering it useless. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF)
was evacuated by sea in late May, while in the south French forces mounted a
doomed resistance. With France on the verge of collapse, Italy’s fascist
dictator Benito Mussolini formed an alliance with Hitler, the Pact of Steel, and
Italy declared war against France and Britain on June 10.
On June 14, German forces entered Paris. France was subsequently divided into
two zones, one under German military occupation and the other under Petain’s
government, installed at France. Hitler now turned his attention to Britain, which
had the defensive advantage of being separated from the Continent by the English
Channel.
To pave the way for an amphibious invasion (dubbed Operation Sea Lion),
German planes bombed Britain extensively beginning in September 1940 until
May 1941, known as the Blitz, including night raids on London and other
industrial centers that caused heavy civilian casualties and damage. The Royal Air
Force (RAF) eventually defeated the German Air Force in the Battle of Britain,
and Hitler postponed his plans to invade. With Britain’s defensive resources
pushed to the limit, Prime Minister Winston Churchill began receiving crucial aid
from the U.S. under the Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress in early 1941.
Hitler vs. Stalin: Operation Barbarossa (1941-42)
By early 1941, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German
troops overran Yugoslavia and Greece that April. Hitler real objectives were: an
invasion of the Soviet Union, whose vast territory would give the German master
race what it needed. The other half of Hitler’s strategy was the extermination of the
Jews from throughout German-occupied Europe. Plans for the “Final Solution”
were introduced around the time of the Soviet offensive, and over the next three
years more than 4 million Jews would perish in the death camps established in
occupied Poland.
On June 22, 1941, Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union,
codenamed Operation Barbarossa. Though Soviet tanks and aircraft greatly
outnumbered the Germans’, Russian aviation technology was largely obsolete, and
the impact of the surprise invasion helped Germans get within 200 miles of
Moscow by mid-July. Arguments between Hitler and his commanders delayed the
next German advance until October, when it was stalled by a Soviet
counteroffensive and the onset of harsh winter weather.
World War II in the Pacific (1941-43)
With Britain facing Germany in Europe, the United States was the only nation
capable of combating Japanese aggression, which by late 1941 included an
expansion of its ongoing war with China and the seizure of European colonial
holdings in the Far East. On December 7, 1941, 360 Japanese aircraft attacked the
major U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, taking the Americans completely
by surprise and claiming the lives of more than 2,300 troops. The attack on Pearl
Harbor served to unify American public opinion in favor of entering World War II,
and on December 8 Congress declared war on Japan with only one dissenting vote.
Germany and the other Axis Powers promptly declared war on the United States.
After a long string of Japanese victories, the U.S. Pacific Fleet won the Battle of
Midway in June 1942, which proved to be a turning point in the war. On southern
Solomon Islands, the Allies also had success against Japanese forces in a series of
battles from August 1942 to February 1943, helping turn the tide further in the
Pacific. In mid-1943, Allied naval forces began an aggressive counterattack against
Japan, involving a series of amphibious assaults on key Japanese-held islands in
the Pacific. This “island-hopping” strategy proved successful, and Allied forces
moved closer to their ultimate goal of invading the mainland Japan.
Toward Allied Victory in World War II (1943-45)
In North Africa, British and American forces had defeated the Italians and
Germans by 1943. An Allied invasion of Italy followed, and Mussolini’s
government fell in July 1943, though Allied fighting against the Germans in Italy
would continue until 1945.
On the Eastern Front, a Soviet counteroffensive launched in November 1942 ended
the bloody Battle of Stalingrad, which had seen some of the fiercest combat of
World War II. The approach of winter, along with dwindling food and medical
supplies, spelled the end for German troops there, and the last of them surrendered
on January 31, 1943.
On June 6, 1944–celebrated as “D-Day”–the Allies began a massive invasion of
Europe, landing 156,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers on the beaches
of Normandy, France. In response, Hitler poured all the remaining strength of his
army into Western Europe, ensuring Germany’s defeat in the east. Soviet troops
soon advanced into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, while Hitler
gathered his forces to drive the Americans and British back from Germany in
the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944-January 1945), the last major German
offensive of the war.
An intensive aerial bombardment in February 1945 preceded the Allied land
invasion of Germany, and by the time Germany formally surrendered on May 8,
Soviet forces had occupied much of the country. Hitler was already dead,
having died by suicide on April 30 in his Berlin bunker.
Effects of War:
World War II Ends (1945)
At the Potsdam Conference of July-August 1945, U.S. President Harry S.
Truman (who had taken office after Roosevelt’s death in April), Churchill and
Stalin discussed the ongoing war with Japan as well as the peace settlement with
Germany. Post-war Germany would be divided into four occupation zones, to be
controlled by the Soviet Union, Britain, the United States and France. On the
divisive matter of Eastern Europe’s future, Churchill and Truman acquiesced to
Stalin, as they needed Soviet cooperation in the war against Japan.
During a top secret operation code-named The Manhattan Project, the atomic
bomb was unleashed on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early
August. On August 15, the Japanese government issued a statement declaring they
would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and on September 2, U.S.
General Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan’s formal surrender aboard the
USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
World War II Casualties and Legacy
World War II proved to be the deadliest international conflict in history, taking the
lives of 60 to 80 million people, including 6 million Jews who died at the hands of
the Nazis during the Holocaust. Civilians made up an estimated 50-55 million
deaths from the war, while military comprised 21 to 25 million of those lost during
the war. Millions more were injured, and still more lost their homes and property.
The legacy of the war would include the spread of communism from the Soviet
Union into eastern Europe as well as its eventual triumph in China, and the global
shift in power from Europe to two rival superpowers–the United States and the
Soviet Union–that would soon face off against each other in the Cold War.
